


In the lulls between tracks

by fanforfanatic



Series: Destiel Drabbles [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dead Castiel, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Grieving Dean, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 16:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11085675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanforfanatic/pseuds/fanforfanatic
Summary: Dean buys it, the house and the land where Cas dies.12x23 coda (of sorts)





	In the lulls between tracks

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks [frecks](http://archiveofourown.org/users/casloveshisfreckles) for helping me with this, you meano :')

Dean buys it, the house and the land where Cas dies. He uses the cash he has squirreled away for emergencies: the wad he has hidden in Baby’s trunk, in her upholstery, the bonds he has slipped in a couple lore books in the library, the ones tucked in that other pair of boots he never opts for. He even takes what he has stashed in three of his strategically placed Go-bags. The rest he makes up for with a couple cautious scams and he doesn't even feel a little bad about it.

Once the property is in his name, well, not  _ his  _ name of course, but once the property is his he doesn't go back to it for weeks. He spends a whole day fixing the hole he made in Baby’s front bench even though it’s a job that should only take a few hours, tops, but it’s hard for him to be meticulous (and Baby deserves meticulous) with his vision blurring like it is. He keeps busy after that, doing what he can to shake the images the plagues him. The bunker has never been cleaner and its refrigerator so well stocked.

When Dean does finally go, it’s after hours of aimless driving that hadn’t actually been as aimless as he’d thought consciously. Dean’s already pulled up next to Cas’ truck by the time his whereabouts register. He hadn't thought about the truck at all. He should probably do something about it. It’s a bit of an eyesore in this place. Leave it to Cas to pick a location as breathtaking as this one to bring Lucifer’s child into the world. He thinks he should take the time to take it in. Cas would. Dean is willing to bet that Cas  _ has _ . Despite all the doom that had been pending, Dean knows Cas wouldn’t have been able to help himself but to appreciate the view. 

Dean goes into the house and he cleans all of it as though, big as it is, the bunker hasn’t satiated him. When he goes back outside, it’s nightfall and it’s dark enough that he can’t see the wing shapes singed into the grass. Dean doesn’t  _ look _ , but he wouldn’t see them if he did.

It becomes a regular thing, daily at first and then when he and Sam start hunting again, daily between cases. He drives up to the house, walks past the truck, avoids looking at anything, goes in and gets to work. When he runs out of things to clean he starts fixing the place up. Refurbishing the wood that’s there, getting new wood to build furniture. He uses the scraps to build a bee hotel that he never takes outside. Cas is the one who would have known how to take care of it anyway. Maybe he’ll pick up a book about it sometime. Sometime when the thought of Cas’ approving smile, small at first and then wide and gummy, doesn’t make Dean want to break everything in sight. 

One day, one of those good days where Dean doesn’t feel like there’s a tear in his chest the way there was a tear in the fabric of space-time that night, as he’s about to leave, Baby does something she’s never done before: she fails him. The engine doesn’t start and after some cursing and then some soothing words and fond patting Dean realises that he’s out of gas and that he’s the one who failed her. He feels as guilty about this as the time he took a crowbar to her hood. 

He knows what the solution is and he’s on autopilot when he makes his way out of the Impala and into Cas’ truck. He’ll leave it in the bunker garage, he tells himself trying not to breathe in the scent that is all Cas and that is all over the interior. He’ll take another car on his next drive up. He’ll buy a gas can, then too, and everything will be okay.

Only, Dean turns the key that’s still in the ignition and number five on the top thirteen Led Zeppelin tracks tape he gifted Cas picks up at the second verse. Absolutely nothing is okay.

Sam has to bring him the gas, days later, because Dean can’t drive the truck and if he could Dean can’t leave this place. Sam doesn’t think Dean really sees him when he comes, kind of like how Dean didn’t seem to be seeing anything when he was fixing Baby up. Sam doesn’t think Dean really sees him when he goes, either.

Dean ends up on his back, laying in the grass, the wings he hasn’t let himself acknowledge until now splayed on either side of him. “This’ll fade too,” Dean thinks. Or maybe he says it. “The grass will grow back and then there won’t be nothing left.”

The sun is low, glimmering off the nearby lake and it’s enough to blind Dean but he glares up at the sky anyway. “You’re leaving nothing behind. You’re leaving  _ me  _ behind, Cas.” The accusation is sharp and angry and desperate. It’s a voice cracking in the non-silence you only find in the kind of nowhere that has trees all around it. And it’s not untrue.

Years later, by the time Dean has worked past denial and anger and all the other stages of grief, the grass will grow back but a little greener than the rest, angled differently, and Dean will still make out the shape of Cas. He’ll lay there, every now and then, often enough, when he can make it up to the house. He’ll listen to the bees buzz yards away in the lulls between tracks wafting over from the truck. And he’ll smile fondly up at the sky, his vision blurring only once in a while.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://fanforfanatic.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
